How Philadelphia’s unusual City Council at-large race works

Explained with pizza, hoagies, and pretzels

In addition to this year’s mayoral election, Philadelphians are about to elect a new City Council. That process can be a little complicated.

Council consists of 17 members. Ten of them are chosen in districts that each cover part of the city. For example, the 1st District spans from South Philly to Port Richmond along the Delaware River waterfront; the 10th District is in the Far Northeast.

For decades, nine of those ten districts have elected Democrats by a simple majority vote, while the other has elected a Republican.

The remaining seven seats are “at-large,” meaning voters across the whole city get a say.

And that voting system is not exactly intuitive.

Top seven win

• To understand how the process works, let’s think of the at-large members of Council as the dishes being ordered for a party.

  And let’s say there are three kinds of foods people like to have: pizzas, hoagies, and pretzels. Before the party, guests make long lists of each type of food they might want to order.

• To keep choices manageable, everyone agrees that the pizza lovers and hoagie lovers first need to select among themselves up to five of their favorite pizzas and hoagies respectively, for partygoers to choose from.

  That corresponds to how Philadelphia’s primary election works. (There aren’t as many pretzel lovers, but they add their two favorite options to the mix later.)

• Then, in a General Food Election, everyone picks up to five of their favorites. Partygoers can choose any combination…

• … from five pizzas…

• … to five hoagies…

• … to any combination across categories (they can even pick fewer than five).

• Then, after all the votes are tallied, the seven dishes with the most votes win.

• Because there are seven spots available, but only a maximum of five dishes of each type, the process guarantees that at least two dishes won’t be from the most popular type. Even if five pizzas get chosen every time there’s a party, there’s always room for a couple other dishes.

  Historically, let’s say that pizza was the choice of the most partygoers, with the hoagies a distant second. That always resulted in five pizzas getting ordered, and two hoagies.

• But let’s suppose the pretzel lovers are having a moment. Even if no hoagie fans change their votes, just a small share of pizza lovers who want some variety in their top five could propel a pretzel to the winning seven, knocking off one of the hoagies — without any pizzas slipping off the list.

• That’s exactly what happened in Philadelphia’s last municipal election in 2019, when the progressive Working Families Party (the pretzel fans in our analogy) deprived Republicans (hoagie lovers) of a seat without taking a seat from Democrats (the pizza fans).

• This year, Democrats remain heavily favored to keep the top five spots – but it’s anybody’s guess how many votes they or the other parties’ candidates will get.

• Republicans are hoping to win back that second seat by consolidating their votes – and acknowledging that they’re not really competing against Democrats, but against the Working Families Party.

  Like their progressive rivals, they’re running only two candidates – three GOP candidates dropped out after the primary to unite behind the other two.

Understanding this complex system is one thing – picking the five candidates who best align with your views is another. To help decide how to vote on Tuesday, check out our at-large Council voting guide.